Last Friday morning about 9 o'clock, while preparing to shoot The Cnmberland
Lead & Oil company No. 1 on the Owen lease in Dry Hollow near Sunnybrook, Earl
Slobaum, shooter for the Kentucky Glycering Company, formerly of Marrietta,
Ohio, became enraged at Ed T. Caffrey the Manager of the Company, and threw a
can of glycerine on the ground which was possibly frozen and failed to explode,
he reached for another can when Caffrey grabbed him by the arm and tried to hold
him, but was compelled to turn him loose and run for his life. Slobaum then
got hold of another can and is thought to have dropped it or as Caffrey and
others think, he shot into the load with a pistol which he carried in his
bootleg and it exploded and set off the wagon load of sixty q uarts which blew
him into fragments and tore a great hole in the ground where the wagon had
stood.
The explosion was a terrific one and was plainly heard here 12 miles away, the
jar being plainly felt in frame houses, as it was snowing, some at first thought
the report was thunder.
Mr. Caffrey was knocked down and severely shocked but not hurt.
One of Slobaums leg and both feet were found on the first day and Tuesday a
report reached here that his breast had been found after the snow had melted it
having just begun to snow when the explosion accured. The remains were brought
here and after funeral services at the home on Walnut street were taken to Elk
Spring Cemetery for interrment. Slobaum leaves a widow to mourn his loss.
Slobaum had been here for several yeara during nearly all of this time he has
been engaged with the Kentucky Glycerine Company, and had shoot hundred of wells
in this and adjoining fields, he has many friends here who will regret his
untimely death.
Mr. Caffrey has also been a successful contractor and promoter, being the
organizer of the company whose well was to have been shot.